chinese-ST 6 mosfet 24v-250w controller

[zEEz]

I wonder if anybody has seen this controller:



Inside It looks like this:



Is is actually quite similar to the infineon controller, except for the cpu: the mosfet driver circuit is identical to that one.

PCB is showing good quality layout, it uses an LM317 for the supply and 6x 80NF70 mosfets.

It uses a STM8S 8-bit MCUs - STMicroelectronics: high-performance 8-bit core and a state-of-the-art set of peripherals.

You can find a motor-control developer kit for it and it has a 5 pin programming header on the PCB.

I'm planning to test it with a big motor (ME0907) and if it is running consistently I plan to dismantle the original mosfet power stage and to substitute it with an external one good for at least 400A ...

PRO - good design quality, low price : 20 euro + shipping
CONS - provided manual sheet is for a different controller version

[whatever]

does it have any special functions:
self learn or sensorless mode?
looks good

[zEEz]

does it have any special functions:
self learn or sensorless mode?
looks good

Ah, yes, I forgot to tell :
phase learning is included and also EABS is selectable (Electric ABS) with another cable loop ...
PLUS: there is an additional cable loop with mysterious function (not in the manual)
there is also a blue wire called DEBUG WIRE

I downloaded from the ST website the official ST8 motor kit ...
my guess is that this controller must be a simple implementation of
the original ST software, so I expect a quick look to the C code sources will
reveal interesting insights on how well it is expected to drive our motors

thanks for popping in

[whatever]

debug sounds interesting.....haven't come across that one before.......wonder what it does

[number1cruncher]

debug sounds interesting.....haven't come across that one before.......wonder what it does

Maybe its an led driver that would produce problem codes? Usually a blue wire is for speedometer, but wire colors mean different things around the world...

[zEEz]

Maybe its an led driver that would produce problem codes?

It would be nice, but I tend to think it is something different:
This controller has actually 3 couples of male-female connectors with just 1 pole each (CABLE LOOPS)...
As I figured out, 1 is for EABS, another for PHASE LEARN and the last one is the MISTER.NO.

I'll make some test and I'll report back ... in case you will not hear from me again, it means
that cable was something better not to mess with

[zEEz]

Hi!
It's me again
I'm reasonably close to rig up a testbed system for this controller:
It uses 2 SLA battery from an e-scooter to obtain 24 volts system voltage
and it sinks all the power inside a Mars ME0907 pmac motor ...

The motor is good for far higher power (up to 20kW), but I want to start the easy way.
From specs the motor can take up to 96volt but people overvolted it up to 120volt.
The datasheet says that at 24 volt it is pulling around 50 amp under load, for an output
power around 1kW and 90% efficiency.
This controller, by design, is limiting around 15A .. so to keep the total power below 250W.
I expect a simple shunt mod can make it to output at least 30A safely since its mosfets are rated 80A.


If control is good at this low power, I'll definitely upgrade the controller output stage to match the higher motor specs.

[ZapPat]

It's probably a *bad* idea to try that small controller out with that big motor, zEEz. The motor probably has quite low resistance/inductance since it is large, and so would generate much higher phase currents than a small hub - possibly destroying your controller's FETs.

[zEEz]

thanks for the advice, ZapPat
I'm aware there is a BOOM risk involved, but I bought this controller exactly in order to upgrade the power stage
to match the ME0907 ... A Small BOOM is fine for me if required ....
... As a side story I like to torture mosfet and I built an A class audio amplifier that worked fine for 4 years with 4 small IRF guys biased to a case temperature of 85°C... I was expecting smoke in less than few months, but after 4 years working great I decided to dismount everything and reuse the components in other projects ....
This controller is using chinese mosfets 80nf70 ... I don't like them, but they are 80A rated.

A future output stage for this controller will use 6x MMIX1F520N075T2 from IXYS ... 500A and 75V each ... they will
hopefully be nice with 60v system voltage ... and feeding up to 10kW of power to the ME motor ....

At the moment no great risk: an RC controller already survived driving the ME0907 ... perhaps this will survive too ...
If not, It means I will be 1 step closer to changing the output stage

[zEEz]

I got the actual pinout for this controller, so I post it here in case anybody else need it ....

[zEEz]

So, I'm back ... No smoke and everything looks fine ....

Perhaps it is thanks to the series resistance offered by the thin wires
connecting the motor to the controller, but I have to witness the fact
that this big ME motor is working fine with the small e-bike controller.

Controller is dead cold either during no load running and after repeated accelerations.

Motor is rotating smooth, no particular noise, acceleration is strong
when taking care of keeping fix the motor to avoid ripping all the cables

Not seen in the picture is the lab supply feeding the system: the 2 SLA batteries act as
a convenient current peak buffer.

Of course with just 24V supply the top motor speed is reduced ....

Indeed now I have to find those big IXYS mosfets, modify slightly the supply part of the controller
to accept around 60V and then ....
... to decide if to start experimenting with it as a motorbike or a marine outboard motor ....

[zEEz]

perhaps interesting news for who can be interested ....
I connected directly to the e-bike controller a simple OEM RC motor (2.5kW max) ...
I did it just for fun, before even thinking to install the 3 hall sensors to make it compatible
with the controller ...
SURPRISE: it is working !!!
.. it seems this cheap controller is going by default to sensorless mode when
no sensor is connected

[TylerDurden]

That is interesting.

[parabellum]

Is it using reprogrammable chip? What for is 7th Fet (maybe transistor) for?

[zEEz]

parabellum,
the 7th transistor is actually the lm317 voltage regulator feeding the controller circuits.
I'll have to change few resistors in that region to accomodate a higher supply voltage.

regarding the st8 microcontroller, it is of course programmable: it is provided a specific 5 pin
connector on the controller's pcb too ... like any other infineon or oem chinese e-bike controller.
In this case, anyway, the good news is that you can download a standard motor controller developer kit with C source code for this chip from the ST website.

have fun!

[parabellum]

Cool. And what does the sticker said, on the enclosure?

[TylerDurden]

Cool. And what does the sticker said, on the enclosure?

...And where to buy?

[zEEz]

Hey, on the sticker there is pure china stuff .... you can see it in the first post ....
I cannot say what it is written, even the website address is unreachable

If you want this controller, you can find it on e-bay either 24V or 36V and 250W ...

the seller is

digital2brother

...

good luck!

[zEEz]

... as crazy as it can seems, but this small controller managed to run flawless
(no load) the motor on the left here in the picture ...
It is an 80-100 Turnigy clone ... 130Kv, 1.8Kg , 6.5kW ...



This is outstanding, especially considering it is doing all this in
SENSORLESS mode ... that is ... no hall sensors are actually connected
to the relative terminals ...

@20v the no load power loss is just 50W, so it is quite low ...

I can't imagine how it'll perform after I'll fit hall sensors to those motors.

have fun

[def215]

hi zEEz,

do you have any update on this? im looking at a similar brushless controller on ebay with the same rating as the controller you have, which is 24v 250w. the link of the one i found is here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/24V-250W-Brushl ... 3a6769ae68
i want to use it to run an rc motor that i have and i wanted to see if you have any updates on this because im looking for another option than running an rc esc.

[nieles]

if you want the same controller.

this is the controller:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/24V-250W ... 4aaa383fb3

[zEEz]

hi def215,
I'm not sure about the super.store.usa controller since I don't have it ...
mine is working ok with rc motors, but consider the current is limited to 15 amps or so ...
<<<<I'm not inclined to think that any chinese controller is working ok wit rc motors without hall sensors fitted>>>>>

have fun

[def215]

thanks for the reply zEEz. its encouraging to know that it is working. i took a shot in the dark and ordered that controller that i found, so ill give some info about it in about 2 weeks, or when it comes in. im curious to see how the guts look like.

[zEEz]

i took a shot in the dark and ordered that controller that i found, so ill give some info about it in about 2 weeks, or when it comes in. im curious to see how the guts look like.

Cool, this is a nice way to screen the controllers available on ebay ...
If you can open it up and post pictures, than hopefully it is possible to identify the microcontroller

On my side, I'm doing my best ordering now a 1500w ebike and also a 200A RC controller

have fun!

[parabellum]

It looks like, controller sold with Qute motors. Can you take picture of programming port? I got presumably the same for 36V 500W and 48V 1000W.